Air Affair (Mile-High Madmen #1)

Chapter 1

Was there anything lonelier than watching your fiancé flirt with another woman at your own engagement party?

After draining her third glass of champagne, Rory decided she’d had enough.

“I’m leaving,” she murmured to Evelyn, as she glared at her husband-to-be who had his arm around the curvy, red-headed singer from the band.

Only the pianist remained on stage, playing a ragtime ditty as partygoers flung themselves around the dance floor of Belmont Park’s Turf and Field Club, drunk on her father’s largesse.

As usual, Papa looked on like a king from his throne, surrounded by his usual court of aspiring robber barons and power brokers.

And also as usual, he was ignoring his future son-in-law’s flagrant transgressions.

“Shall I kill him for you?” Evelyn asked.

Rory put down her glass on a high-hat table draped in purple linen with gold trim and turned to her best friend to see a sly smile on Evelyn’s heart-shaped face. “Edward or Papa?”

“Either. Just say the word. They’ll never know what hit them.”

Rory didn’t doubt for one moment that her friend could carry out her threat. Evelyn Carnegie could kill with a look, even wrapped in frothy yellow charmeuse and chiffon with her chestnut tresses crowned with a ridiculous diamond tiara. It was almost enough to make Rory smile.

Almost.

“Kill the knight in shining armor who is rescuing me from my scandalous past?” Rory pressed her lips together as she watched Edward’s hand slip to the singer’s buttocks and squeeze.

“It’s ludicrous that men can behave like that,” Evelyn said, pointing her chin at Edward, “and women are still expected to remain pure until the day they wed. Any word from Archie?”

Rory winced. “Not a one. The coward is still hiding in London.” Papa was never going to let her marry the son of his business nemesis, not even after she and Archie were caught by a photographer in flagrante delicto.

And she was almost relieved, given how little spine Archie had shown since it all came out in the open.

What an idiot she’d been to fall for him!

He was so adamant about wanting to marry her before everything fell apart, but the minute things went wrong, he disappeared without a word to her, claiming to all who would listen that she seduced him.

“Worthless rat. You’re better off without him.”

Rory couldn’t agree more. She reached out and grasped Evelyn’s hand. “You’re a good friend.”

Evelyn pressed her hand back. “Yes, I am. Now go stare at some airplanes until you feel better.”

Her friend knew her all too well. “Will I see you at the suffrage rally tomorrow?”

“You know you will.”

Good. Rory was looking forward to marching with a crowd of passionate, angry women.

She might not be able to choose her husband, but at least she could vent her frustration through political action.

Papa didn’t approve, but he hadn’t forbidden it either, thanks to Aunt Alva’s intervention.

It was one of the few outlets she had for her frustration with the rigid constraints of her life.

“If anyone asks where I am, say I’m powdering my nose.

” Rory glanced around the opulent room, decked out in royal purple and gold at her father’s command.

After all, this was his demesne. In the low light of electric chandeliers, the crème de la crème of New York society glimmered and sparkled like ghastly courtiers as they ignored her plight completely and lost themselves in the festivities.

Rory slipped into the shadows and slunk out the door of the castle her father built to keep out the riffraff at his famous racetrack. Princess Belmont, the gossip rags called her. At least until the debacle with Archie. Then they called her much worse, but she wasn’t going to think about that.

Nor was she going to think about how she was being bought and sold like one of her father’s horses.

Papa wanted a friend in the Senate, and Edward wanted the Belmont money.

It was a business exchange. Her father said it was to protect her tattered reputation, but there was no disguising the nature of this union.

It was a joint venture between men, and she was merely property changing hands. A shiver ran down her spine.

Papa didn’t treat her brothers like this.

They got to choose who they married, within reason.

But then the rules had always been different for them.

Papa doted on them in a way he never had with her.

Unfortunately, none of them would speak to her after the incident with Archie.

She’d never been close to them, but it hurt, nonetheless.

Airplanes. Think about airplanes. Even if only for a brief respite before she returned to her gilded cage.

The hangar called out to her from across the racetrack.

She couldn’t stay away. Ever since the postal service set up airmail operations on the racetrack grounds, she’d taken every opportunity to peek inside at the miraculous machines that let one soar through the clouds like a bird.

The siren call of freedom and danger was one she could not resist. She’d studied them, gobbling up every article she could find about airplanes and flying.

The Wright Brothers’ achievement at Kitty Hawk was nothing short of a miracle, and she was hooked.

There were even lady pilots. She’d seen Katherine Stinson do an air show in Mineola a few months before, and she thought her heart might explode with longing.

Never had Rory wanted anything so much in her life as to climb into one of those glorious machines and fly it herself, escaping the cage of her life and soaring free.

And so here she was, padding carefully manicured grass toward the makeshift wooden barn the postal service used as a hangar for its brand-new airmail operation, trying not to make a noise. In the distance, a radio played the latest ragtime hits. Was someone still awake and guarding the place?

She slowed her steps, breathing in the smoky air of Queens.

It was little better than an ash pile these days with all the wartime manufacturing.

Her father complained that the poor air quality was bad for his racehorses.

“Well, Papa, after you’ve married me off, you can spend all the time you like with your precious horses,” she mumbled.

There was a rustle nearby. She stopped and held her breath.

Was someone there?

For what felt like an eternity, she stood completely still, listening for the slightest hint that she might not be alone. If she got caught sneaking out of the party, Father would lock her in her room and throw away the key until the wedding.

A tense moment passed.

Nothing.

She was imagining things. It must have been all the champagne.

Slipping in through the hangar’s barn door, which was slightly ajar, she stood still for a moment, letting her eyes adjust. The only light came from an office window with its shutters down at the opposite end of the hangar.

Everything else was cloaked in darkness.

Gathering her courage, she wound her way past the hulking shadows of six biplanes, until she found one with a ladder to the rear cockpit.

In the meager light, she could see that the front cockpit was filled with sacks of mail.

The polished wood propeller of the JN-4 gleamed with a reflection of the light from the office.

A “Jenny” they called it, fitting, given its feminine lines.

Dual wings, held together with posts and a web of wires, cast complex shadows on the wall of the hangar.

Just looking at it sent a thrill right down to her toes.

Someday, she would fly one of these beautiful contraptions.

She would find a way, no matter what her husband might think.

Walking around the wing, temptation overtook her, and she climbed the small ladder resting against the curving body of the plane and nestled into the rear cockpit straddling the rigid wooden control stick.

Fortunately, no one was here to see how improper she looked with her gold satin dress bunched between her silk-stockinged legs.

Grasping the stick with both hands, she imagined what it would be like to wield this machine, soaring above the clouds, trembling, and vibrating with the roar of the powerful Hispano-Suiza engine.

She longed to feel its thrust, pressing her back in her seat with inexorable force, the wind caressing her face, chasing away the sultry heat of the summer’s night.

Why did men get to have all the fun? This might be called a Jenny, but it was hard to imagine a more masculine invention than this aircraft.

Surely the soft, skillful hands of a woman would best know how to tame such a beast. She inhaled deeply, smelling leather, oil, and the feral tang of the steel engine sleeping in the fuselage.

A quiet thrum of giddiness ran through her veins as she ran a finger lovingly down the instrument panel.

Yes, this was just what she needed to shake off the horror of the party. Closing her eyes, she was a bird in the sky, the whole world spread out before her. Weightless. Free.

Her reverie was interrupted by the unmistakable rasp of a match. Her eyes flew open, and her heart skipped a beat as an orange glow appeared in the darkness several yards away. The pungent aroma of a fine, Cuban cigar tickled her nose.

She froze.

“Well, hello, princess,” said a rich baritone, as fine and mellow as a caress. It was a voice made for radio. If only it wasn’t pronouncing her doom.

“To whom do I have the honor of speaking?” Rory asked, exaggerating her aristocratic mid-Atlantic lilt, pretending she wasn’t absolutely terrified. Could she brazen her way through this? It would be a disaster if this got back to her father. And who knew what this strange man’s intentions might be?